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Wrestling’s 4Rs 11.25.13: TNA Impact, WWE Smackdown and DGUSA on iPPV Reviewed
How the 4Rs of wRestling Work!
Here is a quick explanation of the 4R’s. The column will run TWO times a week. We will group our feelings on the shows in various categories: The Right, the wRong and the Ridiculous. The Right is stuff that worked very well: a great promo, a great match and so on. PuRgatoRy is a section between the right and wrong. It shows equal traits from both sides that cannot be ignored and needs discussed. It is not a bad place per say, as things can get remedied or go the wrong way the very next week. The wRong is what it sounds like: bad matches, bad or boring promos and so on. The Ridiculous is stuff that had no right on TV: Stupid angles and so on. And there is always a possibility of a 5th R, which is as bad as they come. This column is supposed to be analytical, and at the right time very critical of the shows, it was the whole reason it was created. This is not a “mark” column, nor a “smark” column, our goal is to analyze the show from many different fronts, reward the good and call out the bad. We will not apologize for our opinions, they are as they are, whether positive or negative.
Dragon Gate USA Fearless 2013 iPPV
By: Larry Csonka
~ Jon Davis, coming off of double secret probation, destroyed Earl Cooter in a complete squash match. If you’re going to run a squash match and make someone look like a beast, this was the way to do it. ~ In the latest effort to give him a push, Caleb Konley teamed with Andrew Everett and defeated Biff Busick & Steven Walters. Larry Dallas also had to make an appearance, begging Konley to come back. No one wants the Scene back; no one wants Larry Dallas around except for Larry Dallas, so please move on. Commentary noted that these new teams were getting a shot to “bolster the DGUSA tag division.” So… we can’t just bring in, wait for it, waaaaaaaaaaaaaait for it… tag teams? I have to say that this was extremely poor booking of Busick. The guy wins the style battle in one of the best matches of the year, and your answer is to put him in a thrown together tag team on the next shows you run? Konley and Everett won in about 14-minutes, they have a plan for a good finish (death valley driver leading to a shooting star press) but they need to speed it up as it comes across as too delayed. Overall this was a good tag match, with Konley and Everett off to a fine start, but I would be lying if I said I was excited about the latest Konley push. ~ Trent Baretta defeated Chuck Taylor. What annoys me is that on this show and the next show, Taylor is back to doing his comedy work, after a bunch of shows where he wasn’t using the Gentleman’s Club and was moving in a serious direction. I guess that has been dropped. I love what Taylor can do with his comedy, but I have also wanted so see if they could go further with him as a serious performer. Instead they did spots with a Tinker Bell balloon. Unfortunately the live crowd seemed to like the comedy way too much, because when they got serious, they died. Overall they did lot of good stuff but it wasn’t exactly what I was expecting, went too long and overall fell flat. ~ AR Fox defeated Mr. Touchdown, Shane Strickland and Fire Ant in a four way freestyle match. The stipulation was that if Fox was pinned or submitted, he would lose the EVOVLE Title. I really think they missed a chance here to crown a new contender for that title by having one of the other three score the win, just not over Fox. Fox has been so adamant about defending the title no matter what, that they could have played that his ego wouldn’t allow him to feel like the champion since he technically lost the four way. I love the fighting champion angle, but they could have easily done more booking wise with the match. Oh well, anyway, this was your highflying, crazy spots portion of the show. I have no issues with that, it was different from the earlier matches and I always look at these freestyle matches as an athletic exhibition. If I get some story on top of that, money. Fox won clean with the Lo Mien Pain (13-minutes) in a good match with hard work by all. ~ Ricochet defeated Rich Swann (18-minutes) in a match between friends and sometime tag team partners (Inner-City Machine Guns). Ricochet is awesome, and Swann may be the most improved guy of 2013. He has grown so much due to his tours of Dragon Gate proper, and I always love seeing wrestlers noticeable improve. I have said it before and will say it again, if I could add someone to the TNA X-Division as a performer to focus on, it is Swann. He has tons of charisma and great in ring work, plus the right attitude in this business to grow and succeed. The match was made because Horiguchi couldn’t make the shows, they reshuffled things, and this is what we got. I really liked this; they did some singing/dancing early to play off the friendship and the crowd, and then worked a really good ground based match to begin. Guys like Swann and Ricochet get a bad wrap because they are athletic and do a ton of cool high flying, but that pigeonholes them to a lot of the fans as “spot guys”. These are guys that at one time may have overly relied on the cool spots, but have evolved and can not do those things, but do them at the right times in the context of the story they are telling in the ring. This was simply a tremendous outing by both men, and easily the best thing on the show thus far. Ricochet then informed Johnny Gargano that he is coming for his title. ~ Tony Nese defeated Jimmy Susumu (15-minutes). Nese recently worked a tour for Dragon Gate proper, and has been getting a lot of buzz this year on the US Indies. Overall this was a good match with Nese getting the clean win with the 450, but it was missing something to get it to the next level. The finish was off, as Nese went for the 450, lost balance and hit a sloppy senton, and then went up and hit the 450 for the finish. They are building Nese pretty well, and this is a victory he certainly needed. Following his match, he cut a promo and Ricochet came out. Nese and Mr. A tried to beat down Ricochet, but they failed, badly. ~ In a non-title match, Masaaki Mochizuki defeated champion Johnny Gargano (17-minutes). Gargano cut a promo about his “roast” tomorrow, and which was meant with some play along chanting and apathy. Rich Swann appeared to say that he would roast Gargano tomorrow, which led to more apathy as Jon Davis appeared and attacked Swann. Overall a good match, but the lack of crowd reaction and flat finish hurt it. Hopefully they do something with this, we have guys like Mochizuki and T-Hawk with non-title victories over Gargano, who has been champion for just over two years now. The thing is that while it is great, I am not feeling this swell of support for anyone to win the title from Gargano. Again, this was a good match, but a notch below the usual Gargano iPPV bouts. ~ In the main event, which was for the Open The United Gate Titles, the Bravado Brothers defeated Young Bucks with the Gentlemen’s Agreement to become the NEW CHAMPIONS (15-minutes) in a good, but not great main event. The Bravados won the “Young Bucks Invitational” during the last EVOLVE shows to earn a title shot. They are also fine young gentlemen that believe in manners, handshakes and making their grandmother proud. I also love when companies take the time to take titles that are traditionally “secondary titles” and give them the main event spot to try and elevate the performers involved as well as the titles. You can see why they did the double turn the next night, because the crowd love the Bucks, even when they are dicks, because they are entertaining. The crowd really turned on the Bravados big time here. We had some damn fine work from both teams, some sweet counters and double teams, and of course the superkick buffet. Lancelot was able to counter more bang for your buck halfway through, and then the Gentlemen’s Agreement finished the Bucks and the titles changed hands. The crowd mostly shit on the title change because they love the Bucks so much, but I loved the Bravados winning. The Bravados offered a rematch, and the crowd wanted it right now. The Bucks told the crowd and Bravados to suck it. Final Thoughts: Overall a good show from DGUSA form the in ring standpoint. The continue to question the overall booking and where they are going, but if you are looking for some fun wrestling, the show is good for the price, but they have had better shows in 2013. Final Score: 7.0 As a reminder, I will be going by the 411 scale… 0 – 0.9: Torture As a reminder, this is not a basic “how good was the show” number like a TV show, as I have always felt that a PPV is very different from a regular show. I have always judged PPV on how they built to a match, the match quality, crowd reactions to matches and angles, the overall booking, how the PPV leads into the future, PPV price and so on and so forth. I have added this in here for an explanation since so many have asked, and I have previously discussed it on podcasts. I understand that this may seem different, but that is how I grade. Obviously your criteria may be different. |
Impact 11.21.13:
By: Danny Bennett
QUICK MATCH RESULTS:
ROLLING CHART: TNA MATCH OF THE NIGHT
How things Work – Each week one match is decided match of the night, the participants of that match are each awarded points (1=Impact, 2 =Impact Special, 5=PPV) the top five are listed on a rolling chart beginning 10.03.13
1. Bobby Roode (8 Points)
2. Kurt Angle (7 Points)
3. Jeff Hardy (3 Points)
4. (Tie) Bully Ray (2 Points), Chris Sabin (2 Points), Austin Aries (2 Points), James Storm (2 Points)
5. (Tie) Manik (1 Point), Kenny King (1 Point), Magnus (1 Point), AJ Styles (1 Point)
Tube IT! ( Matches *** and over well worth a check out as of 10/03/13)
THE RIGHT:
Shark in the Water: This week saw the next stage in the EC3 storyline as he moved up to facing actual wrestlers in the returning “TNA Legend” Shark Boy. Carter in the back spoke with Barnes and Fernum after flying them into the show and ended the feud in a funny segment , and one which showed off EC3’s charisma well. EC3 made short work of Shark Boy as the push continues. This was the right place and right time to do this, EC3 is doing everything right at this point , all he needs is a blow away match and I can see him being an upper carder. It was nice to see Shark Boy as it gave me a old school TNA feel which I’ve missed, if it’s a long term return then that is a good thing, he’s solid if unspectacular, can move a bit of merch and is a good attraction for house shows with a colorful fun gimmick.
The Aces take their last ride: It came down to this after 18 months the story that originated from a stain in Eric Bischoff’s briefs after watching Sons of Anarchy met its crescendo as Bully Ray took on Mr. Anderson in a No DQ match with Club vs. Career. I will say this maybe a few things could have been tweaked but , it was handled pretty much perfectly, week to week booking since BFG, a great blow off that left me satisfied. The match was very good indeed and any other week would have been match of the night. It didn’t go over the top with brutality especially after the deathmatch earlier, but it had great crowd heat and the physiology was tremendous. Anderson sported new long tights which gave him a fresh look and his renewed fire since his return continued and he is now as hot as he has ever been. Bully more than held his own and gave his all and should be praised also. Anderson took out Knux midmatch with the piledriver on the concrete and removed his kutte. Bully speared Anderson through the table in the corner mirroring the finish to their previous match but Anderson kicked out. Anderson won after an overthrown hammer from Brooke led to a shot to the head and a mic check. Afterwards Taz was surrounded by TNA wrestlers and removed his jacket as Anderson held them up to close the show . The one thing I would have changed is the finish as it had recently down with Chris Sabin over the summer. I would have had Bully try to piledrive Anderson on the exposed ring boards but Anderson counters hits a mic check clean, Overall TNA blew it out of the park with this one, but it needs to end now, give Bully a rest , 2-3 months minimum off TV.
Storm vs. Roode to the death: This is purely for the match itself , it was great, Storm and Roode have always had great chemistry as opponents and their rivalry has become one of TNA’s greatest alongside Joe vs. Angle and Daniels vs. Styles. The match was brutal and had a number of sick spots which have a lot more impact because of the lack of hardcore wrestling on national TV these days. Storm’s blade job amplified the brutality and stood out which is something I feel WWE lacks in blood feuds or gimmick matches, Hell in a cell being an example of that .Roode used the beer bottle to knock Storm down before pulling out a barbed wire board but was cut off from using it , thanks to Storm’s partner Gunner throwing in the towel. I’m glad Roode advanced , however I wish the finish would have been better but I guess it keeps Storm strong. It looks like their heading towards Storm vs. Gunner ,which I do not like because I have seen Storm have long feuds with two separate tag partners.
More Action less Promos: One thing I think TNA always had going against it was long drawn out promo or talking segments which greatly cut away from the in ring action, these past few weeks we have seen nearly 20 minute main events and this week the interview and video recaps were kept short concise and to the point , well done on the improvement TNA.
Homecoming: This show was the first taping back in Orlando studios and I’ll be honest , I didn’t notice much different from the live shows, I think they were great for the crowd reception but was that really worth the millions TNA lost on it, I think with a improved house show tour TNA can reach just as many cities as they did with the live Impact shows touring. I wish the show had been made a 3-hour special and featured more stars from he past or more matches to really make it special.
puRgatoRy:
Everything has it’s Place: We had a TNA 365 segment with Christy Hemme conducting an interview with the repackaged Samuel Shaw. After a little flirting Christy wrote down her phone number and left as Shaw quickly made sure the pen and notebook went back in it’s place showing OCD. While this is out of the box, it’s interesting and It gives him a character instead of just being a gut check guy. EC3, LaiD Tapa, Fernum and Barnes, have all been introduced and given characters and each have work well in their roles so far, plus they are all cheap talent that have had their value raised through decent booking, so i’ll give Shaw a chance to impress before I pass judgment.
Open challenge Part 2: Gail Kim’s open challenge continued with her taking on PWG regular Candice La Rae. Kim looked dominant and didn’t give Candice much so can’t really say much about her. I do feel Tapa is wasted being stuck in the corner for three minutes or so a week.
THE wRong:
Magnus gets past Joe: This kicked off the Show , with Dixie talking with Joe in the back and cutting him off before his match saying that she was going bout before him, Dixie also made sure to note Joe’s comments about AJ Styles would not be tolerated and with Joe now out of the tournament I guess it will be forgotten about. Magnus and Joe locked up in a falls count Anywhere match which while decent was disappointing to me, the action was scrappy and disjointed, they seemed to just go from spot to spot, Joe did not impress me with his performance and the finish where Joe ran into the chair was very weak. With Magnus moving on to face Kurt Angle it looks like he has solidified his spot on top of the card.
Storm goes to Dixieland: Dixie came out in the show opening promo and plugged her sports illustrated interview before being interrupted by James Storm. Storm talked about being attacked in a bar by Bobby Roode, Storm asked to upgrade their scheduled bull rope match to a Florida deathmatch, but Dixie refused until Storm blackmailed her by threatening to call the cops and ruining the tournament. Both Storm and Dixie were good, she has definitely made strides since her heel turn, however , the 365 video, the hype and the match meant nothing in the end because Storm ended up as Roode’s bitch once again , I don’t think Storm should have won but damn it Storm hasn’t had any momentum heading into this show, and he got hurt even more by the end
THE RIDICULOUS:
I guess Park is now in a blood feud: TNA why do you do this?, I praise the matches and character development that you have had recently but then you do this, when Park vs. Abyss was announced I was interested how it would develop and with TNA hyping it and pushing it I assumed this would be the blowoff and reveal that Park is Abyss. After Abyss failed to show and Bad Influence bullied Park in the ring leading to them pouring a bucket of blood over his head and him walking away dejected. Some of the insults were funny but nothing was advanced whatsoever , just blatant Bait and Switch on an Impact Special , FUCK THAT SHIT
This week’s Turning Point special was very good indeed , the show had a really nice flow and each match advanced a story and the majority delivered good action . I’m interested what will occur in the next few weeks as I think TNA is heading in the right direction. That Joseph Park skit was atrocious but the No DQ and Florida death matches were great. TNA is getting more right than wrong these days definitely give them a chance. Show Rating: 7.8 As a reminder, I will be going by the 411 scale… 0 – 0.9: Torture |
Smackdown 11.22.13
By: Danny Bennett
QUICK MATCH RESULTS:
ROLLING CHART: SMACKDOWN MATCH OF THE NIGHT
How things Work – Each week one match is decided match of the night, the participants of that match are each awarded 1 Point the top five are listed on a rolling chart beginning 15.11.13
1. Luke Harper (2 Points)
2.(Tie) Daniel Bryan , Erick Rowan, Jimmy Uso, Jey Uso (1 Point)
THE RIGHT:
Tag title match tears down the house: The tag title conclusion featured The Real Americans taking on The Rhodes Dynasty in a fantastic match. The tag division is propping up the TV product nowadays thanks to the quality matches distracting from the poor booking and lackluster PPV build. The Rhodes brothers have been on a tear and Goldust looks better than ever, The champs retained after the disaster kick . It might have been good to switch the belts to get some hype going into Survivor Series but I’m fine with the finish.
Ryback slays the giant: Ryback continued on from his shell shock to the Big Show and managed to defeat The Great Khali in quick fashion using the Shell Shock once again. If Ryback is getting punished for his attitude it seems to have blown over as he is getting pushed again. His loss to R-Truth is just silly looking back.
Harper vs. Bryan: On a show with two really good tag matches underneath these two had a great mat based clinic and gave me a chance to see Harper in one on one competition on the big stage. Harper’s Michinoku driver and gator roll are really impressive and I hope he gets some singles matches in the future, Bryan was great as always. Wyatt and Rowan looked to interfere drawing out CM Punk who got beaten down as The Wyatts stood tall. The WWE obviously has faith in them to book them so strongly and to headline shows, they are doing a good job and I hope their push continues.
puRgatoRy:
Rey Rey is Back: The Shield took on the team of Mysterio and The Usos in 6 man tag action and had a gem of a match. Most Shield 6 mans have delivered and this was no exception , Mysterio stayed on the apron and let the Usos carry the action I assume do to injury. When Ray got in he looked sluggish and off pace which might be due to ring rust or injury. I dislike The Shield losing again as it would have been a perfect time for a shmozz leading into Sunday to protect all 6 men.
THE wRong:
AJ gets handicapped: Smackdown GM Vickie Guerrero took revenge on AJ Lee for her beating on Raw by placing her in a handicap match against The Funkadactyls. I honestly do not get this , who is the heel and face, don’t give me shades of gray bullshit, its poorly written crap. The match was useless and Cameron is the least threatening female wrestler ever. Just bad all around.
Del Rio promo: Del Rio cut a backstage interview talking about beating John Cena and making his tap out Sunday. He had good fire but the fact remains nobody believes what he is saying, their is no doubt Cena will win, even Del Rio didn’t sound convinced , The World and WWE title main events look to be the most predictable headliners I can recall.
Orton and Big Show- It’s on: The WWE champion and his challenger had a verbal showdown and it was very vanilla and bland to be quite honest. Big Show did his best but he has been rehashing the same stuff for weeks now , and Orton did nothing for me. In the time the guys had they did nothing to get me interested in their match and that’s sad when it’s the big selling point of the show.
New opening: The show featured a brand new opening title graphics package which was very slickly produced and as always in house topnotch WWE quality, however the Smackdown theme still remains dreadful , I yearn for the days of Greenday and Drowning Pool.
Big E & Ziggler Re-unite: The brand new IC Champ teamed up with The Show Off as they easily took down the team of Sandow and Axel. It amazes me how far Ziggler has fallen in less than a year as he was reduced to the sidekick role. Sandow worked most of the match and got pinned , he’s another guy who has been thrown away since his loss to Cena. Axel might as well have stayed home for the good he did, Big E was the focus of the match and I’ll admit he looks good and is agile for a big man, let’s hope he isn’t another Ezekiel Jackson.
THE RIDICULOUS:
Survivor series hype: One word…Poor. Who looks at the Survivor Series card and wants to spend $50 on it. It might end up being solid , it might even be good but it does not look exciting one bit. Daniel Bryan was blamed for the low buyrates for the PPVS since Summerslam sending him down the card, So when this show does a low buyrate , possibly lower, who is going to be blamed, Orton?, Cena?, The writers? , I blame the booking team for not changing direction when things are bad. I’m sure Triple H is having a blast playing the evil owner but it’s causing the title scenes to be weaker than ever. Here is the Survivor Series card
Here’s My Card:
– if Orton’s team win Bryan doesn’t get a title shot ever again
-If Bryan’s team win they each get to run a Raw or Smackdown for a Week
World Title Match: Cena vs. Sandow vs. Del Rio
No Holds Barred : Lawsuit vs. Career – Big Show vs. Triple H
If looked at in a bubble then this would be an amazing show, 3 matches each over *** is an instant win, however the booking is bad and it is doing a disservice to the talent. I wish that things were different because I love the survivor series but how anyone could want to purchase that card is beyond me. I get that TV Ratings is the priority but buyrates are still bringing in the money and fans are going to be turned away by this. Show Rating: 7.0 As a reminder, I will be going by the 411 scale… 0 – 0.9: Torture |
Backstroke, brother!
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